Fairy Godmothers

After seeing the commercial for 'The Princess Diarys' about 120 times in the last week or so (no I didn't count - but you can estimate the number pretty easily based on the number of times an hour the commercial airs times the total number of hours of childrens television watched) I got to thinking about Fairy Godmothers.

Now for anyone who has been spared the commercials, the movie is about a clutzy, nerdy, ignored teen who is suddenly swept up and changed by her (never previously encountered) grandmother who just happens to be the queen of a small European nation. My first thought was "oh, isn't that nice", followed by "geeze another damn fairy godmother".

Why such a reaction? In our "give me a pill and cure it" society I'm blaming Disney. Too many of us have ingrained in the back of our little peanut brains that somewhere our Fairy Godmother is just waiting to make it all better. We've forgotten the "pull ourselves up by the bootstraps philosophy" of the past in favor of a magic wand. It's not just Disney either. It's all over the place - even everyone's favorite boy wizard, Harry Potter, is suddenly swept from his hellish life by wizards and wisked to Hogwarts (which ain't easy, but is better).

It's the root of every "as soon as I win the lottery" financial planning and major surgery weight loss. It's why we want the schools to fix our kids, the community association to fix our neighborhoods and the courts to fix our interpersonal problems.

We've forgotten the spirit of the settlers who had nothing but hope, the explorers who missed India and made due with America, and the folks like my dad who when two jobs didn't provide enough income - got a third. It's the land of easy living and we've gotten fat and spoiled.

And I'm guilty! I want the magic pill to lose weight. I expect to be paid well for very little work. And why hasn't that darn fairy sprinkled the pixie dust to make my life match those fairy tales. Sigh.

Oh well, back to the Disney Channel ...